


the best christmas present;

by bloodynargles



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Gen, WW2 AU, WWII AU, dasecretsanta, heLL YEAH HELL YEAAAAAH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 13:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5541365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodynargles/pseuds/bloodynargles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cousland was a nurse, a human noble with no magic to her name, helping heal the wounded in battle. He can’t quite tell if she’s a risk taker, or she just got stationed here and couldn’t change it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the best christmas present;

**Author's Note:**

> this is like, exclusive or something. i dont even have it on my computer i literally wrote it on my ipod at 6am on christmas morning i was so like just clipping the deadline. buuuuuut.
> 
> This is my dasecretsanta for iscawen on tumblr, and you all get it a day later because i have time now. 
> 
> ....and games to install.

He can remember her eyes, like blue lyrium infused against dark black stone, the memory bubbled in his mind as his feet bounded across the land, a battlefield ahead and behind, mines and strewn bullets litter the ground and Alistair _breathes_. He has to do it for her. For the pretty nurse with the kind eyes and a noble name, but there she was, in a tent in the middle of the Anderfels with elfroot potions on hand and a stern but kind voice, coaxing injured soldiers back to bed. 

They have battlemages, and of course they have healer mages, but they’re scarce, most don’t want to be prosecuted for using their magic without the college’s consent. Most don’t want to hurt people. Cousland was a nurse, a human noble with no magic to her name, helping heal the wounded in battle. He can’t quite tell if she’s a risk taker, or she just got stationed here and couldn’t change it. Either way, he feels for her parents. 

Long red curls fall down her back, he can remember accidentally walking in on her changing, once, when he was a rookie, a private with no training. Maker, he wished he had stayed that way. He stumbles, misses a land mine by about an inch and he almost stops to catch his breath, but he has to keep moving or he’s dead, and he leaves his nurse to weep in grief. He can’t do that. He remembers what it was like when they got the news about Duncan, how she had left the room, hand over her mouth and tears welling at her eyes. He’d chased after her, pulling his cap off of his head, hair cut shorter than it’s ever been, than he’s ever liked it. She had been crying with her hands over her face when he’d finally found her, kneeling down to her sitting height to reach out a hand in comfort, to let her know he was here, that he would always be there, should she want it. Alistair can remember the tightness of his chest as he pulled her in for a hug, arms wrapped around her small frame as he tried so hard not to seem wimpy, or cry himself. She had told him off for that, “Emotion is not a weakness, Alistair - it is what brought you here, is it not?" 

He’d been shoved off to a monastery when he was eight by an adopted uncle with a snobby Orlesian wife who thought he was her husband’s bastard, when in fact he was the king’s. Silly, really. His mother was a maid, one of the elves who were smart enough to realise that the crown would pay them more if they were to work, at least that’s what he’d been told, anyway. He’d rather think that than the whispers and rumours of his mother being a mage. 

He wondered sometimes if Cousland was anything like his mother, or what she would say if they ever met - if he ever got back. Alive, at least. 

Bullets infused with cold magic fire across his shoulder as he runs, can feel the air as it goes by, almost grazing his cheek, the almost freezing tingle of the magic pulsing as it whizzes by. Two inches to the right and he’d be a dead man, or almost. There’s the distant yells of battlemages as they hurl projectiles from the fade at their enemy, the sounds as the rock hits are spine tingling, and somewhere he prays he never has to stare into the eyes of an enemy mage. 

His feet pound against the ground and he thinks they’re going numb, almost in rhythm with his heartbeats, if he thinks about her, he has less chance of falling down a pot hole or tripping over a dead soldier, or walking straight on top of a trap, blown to pieces within a second, nothing left to salvage for his lover. Maker, he misses her. 

They’d become friends, brought together by war and a father figure’s death, she had laughed at his silly jokes and anecdotes, and he had held her at night when she creeped into his room to cry, her shaking body held firm and softly against his chest and in the morning they’d never speak of it again. Half of him wondered what had happened to make her so upset, the other part knew it wasn’t any of his business. The old healer, Wynne, had said maybe to give her space, but he liked where they were, and he knew that once he had been deployed, all he’d have of her would be memories. Like those he was focusing on now. A bright light to steer him ahead, to keep him safe so that he could soon hold her in his arms, again. Just to see her eyes again, _Maker’s Breath_ she is beautiful. 

He makes it to a barbed fence, the rest of his regiment falling behind him, the screams of agony and death echo as they get shot or step on a land mine, yelling for the others to run, quickly, that they don’t want to take the others with him. It was going to be Christmas, soon, he’s not sure it snows in a desert wasteland created by the Blight. The Grey Wardens once had their headquarters here, before the order fell apart in the Dragon Age, after the breach pulled apart the sky, before the rulers of that time practically doomed a prophet of their time. The Chantry speaks many different truths of the Inquisition that was formed after the divine’s death by her right and left hands, the history is patchy about the Dalish Inquisitor that disappeared after the events at he Exalted Council. The Seeker who had become Divine Victoria had recorded the events meticulously with her own hand, though the Chantry strays from her written word sometimes. 

His hand is sweaty as it grips onto his gun, knuckles white, face a hard expression as he moves. He can’t let her down, can’t have a letter that states he’s dead or MIA placed into her small hands, but he doesn’t notice, doesn’t _feel_ the bullet until he’s face down in the wet sand, staring at a mine. His mind fails him, and so does his eyes, betraying him as they close, vision fading. 

 

Amber eyes open to bright surgical lights, an Orlesian woman staring at him with wide eyes, a nurse he’d seen before but his memory failed him. "Welcome back, Alistair.” She smiles softly and his mind wonders to Cousland, to the woman he’d promised himself to, to the nurse he missed the most. His chest stings as he pulls in a breath, but she catches him before he can speak, “She has lost a lot of people, you know? I am always one for the romance,” Her voice trails off softly, but she shakes herself from it quickly enough to finish her point. “But I do not like to see my friend _scared_ , not like that.” She fiddles with something beside his bed before turning to him, and _Maker_ , he never thought such a sweet woman’s face could go so _dark_. “So help me Maker, if you _ever_ hurt her, and I mean ever, Theirin. I _will_ kill you. Slowly, and painfully and I will have _help_.” She jabs her finger into his chest, and Alistair swears he’s never seen anything more terrifying than the red headed Orlesian nurse glaring at him. Also, how did she know he was a Theirin? 

She leaves a little while later, and he gets the feeling that he’ll be watched the whole time he’s here. The door swings open, the noise startling him awake, the elfroot they’re medicating him with allowing him to easily fall asleep, without the horrors of war making themselves known in the fade.

Rushed footsteps sound towards him and he opens his eyes to Aella, red hair tied back, eyes wild and wide, “You’re awake! Oh Maker, I..” She trails off and they stare at each other for a moment, the world seemingly stopping around them, and she _smiles_ and Alistair swears she was the only thing that guided him home to her side. “The best Christmas present, ever.”

“It’s Christmas?” A goofy, lopsided smile lights up his face and she laughs, loud and joyful and he wants to hear that sound _forever_.


End file.
